The focus of this study is to analyze the pattern and costs of services in four areas, which critically affect most households in Kerala . The major concerns of this paper include answers to questions such as: How much did Kerala households spend for education of their children, for treatment of...

Cubic splines have long been used to extract the discount, yield, and forward rate curves from coupon bond data. McCulloch used regression splines to estimate the discount function, and, more recently, Fisher, Nychka, and Zervos used smoothed splines, with the roughness penalty selected by...

Some questions relevant in the context of ethics in social science research are: Does social science have peculiarities which are masked by discussions on science at large? Given the need for objectivity in scientific inquiry can theory laden-ness be kept sufficiently distinct from value...

Lead recycling is often supported through a well-functioning Deposit Refund System (DRS) in the market for batteries (branded and generic). In this system, people can get a discount on the purchase of a new battery if they return the used one to the retailer. While a DRS has existed in the...